14 DAY TRIAL // Details on the actual specifications of the upcoming six-core processors from Intel and AMD are still rather scarce, but consumers have been steadily getting an idea of what they can expect from these products. Advanced Micro Devices has mostly chosen not to disclose too much data on the Phenom II X6 “Thuban”, but this does not seem to have affected the spawning rate of related rumors. A more recent report hints at the possibility of the Thuban being built with dynamic performance boost features, a completely hardware-based functionality that will directly manage the operation of each core depending on the applications that are running.
The multi-core processor technology has been advancing at a very rapid pace when compared to the software industry. Dual-core and quad-core CPUs have very high capabilities, but the largest part of applications do not recognize or are not capable of taking advantage of such chips, relying solely on clock speeds. As such, hardware makers find themselves in need of technologies that can somehow make up for this limitation. Intel already has the Turbo Boost technology, which can slow down cores in order to speed up the others. AMD is reportedly planning on including a similar functionality in its Thuban.
The dynamic performance boost technology is currently known as “C-state performance boost” and will supposedly be able to detect when single-threaded operation is needed. In such cases, the idle CPU cores will be automatically disabled and the clocks of the ones used will be boosted to as high a level as possible. The limit will be determined by the general thermal design power. Unfortunately, even though the Thuban will be compatible with AM3 and AM2+ motherboards, it is still uncertain whether the C-state boost will work on all of them.
Predictably, AMD refused to comment on the rumors.